ARIA
The safe house Lyssa brought us to was forty miles from the facility and looked like someone had converted a warehouse into living space without caring about aesthetics or comfort.
"We stay here for six hours," she said while people filed in looking exhausted and traumatized. "Long enough for medical assessment and basic rest. Then we split again. Marcus will track aggregated movement patterns. We need to stay dispersed."
The forty adults we'd extracted from main containment moved like people who'd forgotten what freedom looked like. Some sat immediately on whatever surface was closest. Others stood against walls like they expected guards to appear and drag them back. None of them looked at us directly.
"They don't trust this is real," Luna said quietly. She was watching them with the expression of someone who remembered exactly how that felt. "They think it's a test. Something Marcus designed to identify who'd try to escape if given the chance."
